Put It In Ink - Mauldin Tattoo Shop Built On Intimacy, Art of Ink
Jeff Pence is the Tattoo Man.
Maybe it's the hour (or two or three hours) that clients spend at his custom tattoo shop in Mauldin … or the love or the hate or the hurt or the joy that brings them through the door … or the artwork they've chosen to wear on their skin … or the trust … or the intimacy ... or the pain.
'The tattoo man knows everything,' says Pence, founder and owner of Magic Rooster Tattoo.
'I've tattooed people who needed that tattoo. They needed it. A family member died. They're going through a bad time. For however long they're sitting with me, that's their release.'
It is healing, Pence explains. But he shrugs, he says, when clients say so.
'Tattooing is very intimate and personal. I call it an intimate ritual. You're sitting with me, and I'm sitting with you,' he says.
'When people start to feel the pain, they feel comfort. It's therapeutic. They trust us, and they tell us a lot. We're fortunate. We love every one of our clients, and we appreciate the stories they tell us.
'We're the tattoo man.'
Pence opened Magic Rooster Tattoo 10 years ago.
He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Greater Mauldin Chamber of Commerce. The shop, with staff and clients, has raised more than $30,000 for Shriners Hospitals for Children in Greenville and hosted fundraisers for Safe Harbor and Ronald McDonald House. The shop sponsors the Woodmont Youth Association and the Weatherstone neighborhood swim team.
'We try to give back,' he says. 'We're a tight little family here.'
David Dill, LeeJohn Dean, Brandy Artz and Chris Glover work with Pence at Magic Rooster, 255 W. Butler Road.
'We've been together for a long time,' Pence says. 'We run a fun, wholesome shop. We care about tattooing. We care about the direction of tattooing. We care about the tattoos you get. We're thankful that we're able to make tattoos. We're appreciative of the community that allows us to be here.'
Magic Rooster – named for 'Magic Rooster Blues' by Pence's favorite band, The Black Crowes – also has the legal right to do business, which hasn't always been true for tattoo shops.
Tattooing was outlawed in South Carolina until 2004.
Tattoo businesses now must obtain a license from the State of South Carolina, comply with health and safety standards, and locate at least 1,000 feet away from a school, playground or church. Tattoo artists train according to rules set by the state.
Pence says Florence tattoo artist Ron White was at the forefront of the fight for legalization. White was arrested in 1999 and fined after a television station showed him tattooing in his home. He ultimately took his cause to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.
'Tattooing was – I don't want to call it back alley, but it was kind of a taboo culture. Then we had the rise of the TV shows. 'Miami Ink.' All of them. They put tattooing in people's living rooms. A person might not have ever walked into a tattoo shop, but now they see these beautifully done tattoos from the comfort of their couch,' Pence says.
'That's how it went mainstream. We make fun of the TV shows. But they really propelled our careers.'
Pence was 10 when his father died, and his uncles became powerful role models. 'They had tattoos and Harleys and long hair. I thought, 'I want to be cool like them.''
Tattoos were equally popular among his punk rock and skateboarding idols. Always an artist, Pence soaked it up. 'It was all around me,' he says.
He got his first tattoo at 15, when his family moved to South Carolina from Ohio. He's lost track of how many he has today.
Magic Rooster is the natural evolution.
'I worked with really great people,' Pence says. 'Guys I worked with were from the era of integrity and hard work and work ethic. Tattooing is not something you get into lightly, and it's not something that you can necessarily teach. You either have it or you don't.'
Pence's mentor is Jason Eisenberg, who owns Holy City Tattoo in Charleston. Pence says he learned about tattoos, ethics, how to talk to people and how to run a shop.
But when Pence and his wife, Whitney, moved to the Upstate after she graduated from the Medical University of South Carolina, Pence says he couldn't find a shop with 'the hard work, the care, the overall ethics of tattooing.'
'My way of being able to run a shop the way I wanted was to open one myself – bring in the people I wanted and have a shop that cared. I never wanted to be a business owner, but in hindsight, it's one of the best things I've ever done.'
So, what about the pain of that tattoo needle? 'Tattoos don't feel like little puppies licking you. They do hurt,' Pence says. 'I tell people that it's got a little bite to it. But at the end, when you're looking in the mirror, you're thinking, 'That wasn't so bad. I could do that again.' You can sit through a little bit of discomfort for a lifetime of enjoyment.'
Pence says tattoos have been found on ancient people entombed in ice. Soldiers brought tattoos home from far-flung wars and ports. But it was rock stars and celebrities who took tattoos to new heights.
'I'm lucky to have a custom shop. People come to us with an idea, and we draw it and make it their own. But if Rihanna gets a new tattoo today, that's what we'll be tattooing,' Pence says.
He says the art he grew up with has given him more than he could have imagined. 'But you've got to be good to tattooing. She's eye-for-an-eye. If you treat tattooing bad and pervert it, you won't make it.
'The tattooing of yesteryear … It's come a long way. We've just got cooler jobs than you guys.'
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Put It In Ink - Mauldin Tattoo Shop Built On Intimacy, Art of Ink
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